


Syzygy

by Wix



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), Iron Man - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Broken Team, But Kinda Is At The End I Guess, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Prompt Fill, Thanos Attacks, not a fix it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-28 19:57:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11425077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wix/pseuds/Wix
Summary: Things are broken beyond compare long before Thanos attacks.





	Syzygy

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone!  
> Sorry that it's been a while since I've posted anything or filled a prompt request! I've been a little busy with other projects but here's this one for you!
> 
> Prompt:  
> > Steve and the others return to America shortly after CW, but Tony is broken in ways that they can't understand and Steve has to watch as the team falls apart again while they try to put themselves back together but it doesn't work. In the end Thanos comes and wins. If possible stony? 
> 
> I hope I managed it for you!

There are only two kinds of days anymore: bad days, and worse days. It’s been that way since Ross’s crimes came to light and the Sokovia Accords were ratified to include protections against someone coming in and trying to abuse their power under the table. Steve and the others returned from Wakanda within just a few short months, and since the moment that they stepped foot on American soil, in front of hundreds of reporters clamoring for their attention. _Triumphant Victory_ some had called their return. Others had not been so friendly.

_Tails Between Their Legs. Sellouts. Cowards. Traitors. Criminals._

The lists went on and on, news story after news story decrying the ‘ex-Avengers’ and condemning their return after all of the work that Iron Man and his team had put into this change. They lambasted them for hiding out and abandoning their oaths to protect the people and for abandoning their team mates when the going got rough.

There was once a time, when Steve thought that things would have worked out differently. There was a time when he thought that the damage done to them was superficial and that someday they’d all rise from the ashes like the phoenix and be stronger together.

He lost that naïve thought the first time he sees Tony in the flesh since Siberia. When he sees the sharp smile and the empty eyes. When he realizes that these wounds given by them didn’t just knock Iron Man down temporarily, they shattered him completely and now Steve isn’t certain that he knows the man standing in front of him anymore. He doesn’t know how Tony welded himself back together and what pieces of himself he deemed too damaged to even attempt to repair.

+++

_“I’m sorry Tony,” Steve says the first time he catches Tony in the kitchen at two in the morning. The brunet looks at him with those hollow, always tired eyes._

_“And what good does your sorry do me?” He asks and Steve doesn’t have an answer for him. It’s clear that Tony isn’t really expecting one._

+++

The Compound feels different since they got back, as empty and as hollow as the owner is these days. There’s no music filling in from the lab, there’s no laughter or chaos in the kitchen. They try to get those moments back, but with Vision, and Rhodes gone from the place, Tony no longer interacting with them and their own guilt weighing down on them…it never seems to have the same feeling.

They all try to chip away at the wall surrounding the brunet in their own ways over the next few weeks, some with more varying degrees of failure than the next, but they keep trying – a feeling of horrible responsibility for the damage that they’ve caused.

A heart they’ve broken.

Vision has no words for them when he comes onto the field the first time since they’ve returned. He’s focused in a way that Steve’s never seen him before, and he’s cold – he’s so cold and almost less human than before, towards them. He’s short in his answers if he deigns to answer at all and he’s the first to just ignore common propriety and walk away right as one of the others attempt to talk to him.

He does have a softness for Tony though, it’s clear in their interactions with each other, but that softness doesn’t translate towards any of them – and certainly not towards Wanda who desperately trips over herself to regain the relationship that they had before the young woman left the other in a crater of her own making. Steve tries to ignore the pain in her eyes and the hatred that she turns towards Tony like he’s personally responsible for her own little hell.

Maybe…maybe it’s time that they start to realize their own hand in their own tragedies.

+++

Natasha attempts to get back in Tony’s good graces first and Steve isn’t surprised. They enter the kitchen to find her cooking some complicated Russian dish that Steve can’t even pretend to say and she turns around with a small smile, offering up a plate to Tony as he walks in for his obligatory cup of coffee and he doesn’t stop, doesn’t take it from her or thank her for the offering.

He just walks past her, walks past all of them like they don’t exist, and disappears back into the lab like a ghost.

There’s a small tremor in Natasha’s hands as she grips the plate to herself before she hides it and puts the plate down, leaving the area for them all to eat dinner by themselves.

None of them touch it.

Steve doesn’t think he could stomach it if he did.

She tries again a few days later, expensive caviar that Steve remembers is Tony’s favorite and some expensive vodka. She holds it up for him the minute he returns from another meeting and event, and he just stares at her as he approaches. There’s a moment of hope as he grabs a tumbler off of the counter, but then he pours some scotch into it and takes a sip.

“Vodka’s faster.” Natasha says, trying to sound so friendly. “If you’re trying to forget your woes for the night.” Tony takes another sip.

“Sorry. I’m sober these days.” He says as he toasts her with the scotch and walks away, disappearing behind the elevator doors that lead into his impenetrable lab. (Steve would know –he’s already tried getting down there with no success)

Steve tries not to say anything when he finds the broken shards of the vodka bottle and the unopened caviar containers in the trash.

Truth be told it’s more from cowardice than from a feeling of not wanting to step on anyone’s toes. To be honest, he doesn’t know what he could say to make this all better.

+++

Clint is of course too much too soon after Natasha. He’s all rage, and a feeling of validation or vindication that he obviously feels that Tony should just bow down to and admit that he was wrong.

It’s painful to watch how Clint rages, and snarks and insults Tony who just ignores him like he’s not even hearing him, but Clint presses on – desperate in his own way to start a conversation, any conversation, with the billionaire…but he never manages.

Steve remembers how those two used to get along so well, they weren’t friends by any kind of words, but they weren’t this.

The atmosphere in the Compound changes drastically one day when Clint challenges Tony to a sparring match. He mocks Tony, saying he’ll take it easy on him since he’s getting old and he’ll be practically defenseless without the suit on.

Steve knows that he should have stepped in, that he should have stopped it when he sees the smile curl on Tony’s face as he tells Clint to lead the way.

…Tony claims it was an accident when Clint is rolled out of the training area minutes later. Wanda wants to press some kind of charges, but conveniently there’s no footage of the match and Clint is surprisingly quiet about the whole thing.

Clint retires two days later.

He never says why.

+++

Wanda is a mistake of epic proportions and Steve can’t help but feel…responsible for what happens with the young Sokovian.

There’s a loud scream when Steve and Sam return from a grocery run. They make it there at the end of everything but what they see is horrifying enough.

Everything is knocked off the walls, thrown around like a tornado has come through the area. There’s blood dripping down Tony’s face, but he’s _so calm_ as he just stares at the girl writhing on the floor. Her screams are terrified and cracking, and Steve rushes over to see what’s happened. There’s a new collar around her throat and Steve glances at Tony with confusion.

“She attacked me. She knew what the consequences were if she did that.” He doesn’t flinch or have any kind of emotion in his voice as he just stares at the girl who is yanking on the collar like her life depends on it.

“Take it off!” Sam snaps and Tony just gives him that blank look.

“Why on earth would I do that?” He asks, and something about it makes a feeling of ice go down Steve’s spine.

When the Accords Council comes and picks Wanda up, she’s stopped screaming but she’s muttering to herself about being ‘empty’.

“It nullifies the Mind Stone’s powers in her body.” Tony fills in. “It’s temporary, until she gets the cure.”

“Cure?” Steve asks and Tony nods.

“She knew what would happen.” Steve watches the police cart her away and he wonders how they’re going to get past this if there’s even a chance of doing so at this point.

+++

Although, if he were honest – nothing was worse than Steve’s own attempt after Sam leaves.

“Can’t you see? This isn’t what we thought it was. This…this is dangerous.” Sam says, telling Steve that maybe Steve should consider his own retirement, but Steve can’t leave Tony a second time and Sam shakes his head. “You’re going to destroy each other.” He warns him and Steve almost laughs.

Sam isn’t saying anything they didn’t already know.

He sits in the dark, the whole place empty and he looks up when he sees Tony standing in the doorway. There are words on his tongue, apologies and promises but Tony just shakes his head, turning and walking down the hallway. Steve follows his lead, like he should have done all that time ago, and he isn’t sure how he feels when they land tangled in Steve’s sheets. There’s a disconnect to the entire act, and once again Steve feels the truth of the differences in the man underneath him.

Tony used to always talk. Always making jokes, smiling and making Steve blush and grin back with him, but now he’s silent and as he nears the end his face looks like Steve is killing him.

When it’s over, Steve doesn’t say anything as Tony rolls out of the bed and leaves him lying there with so many conflicting emotions.

He feels…wrong. On such a deeper level than he did before all of this – and he can’t help but wonder if Tony meant for him to feel this way.

If this is Tony’s price for what Steve did to him.

+++

Thanos comes within the next month and they’re not prepared. He cuts through them like butter and Steve watches as his friends fall down all around him and never rise again.

Thanos gives him a pitying look as he stands there alone, before Iron Man drops to his side, standing there beside him at the end. They both know that they’re going to lose, but they’ll finally do this together it seems.

Later, when Steve is choking on blood and he sees Tony fighting to take his last breaths, he reaches out towards the brunet with the last of his strength.

“… _I’m sorry._ ” Are his final words, and it feels right for his last breath to belong to the brunet. Tony gives him a shaky smile and for the first time since Siberia he _looks_ at him.

“… _I…forgive…yo-”_ Tony doesn’t finish his last sentiment, but it brings a smile to Steve’s face as his fingers brush the cold armor surrounding Tony’s and he lets his eyes close.

Maybe if they get another chance, they’ll do it better.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and thank you to whoever sent that request!  
> 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Through the Course of War](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11643609) by [buckymalik](https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckymalik/pseuds/buckymalik)




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